


she keeps her promises

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Hospital beds, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:59:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy is never letting go again.
(Written for the #ByeByeHiatus prompt event at johnsonandcoulson)





	she keeps her promises

He wants to keep his eyes closed - a surprising, overwhelming exhaustion comes over, even though he just regained consciousness - but he could swear someone is talking to him. That someone has been talking to him the whole time.

There’s something rough but warm under his cheek, and he can feel wet stickiness on his shoulder, and something pushing into it. He can’t tell if that hurts or not.

There’s a humming noise all around him.

Someone is holding him.

She smiles at him when he opens his eyes, his head resting over her chest. The rough material against his cheek was her field suit, he realizes. the only thing she took with her when she left. The warmth under his body was Daisy, he realizes.

“You’re not real,” he says.

He’s dreamed about her too many times in these past six months. He must have finally lost it.

Daisy - or the Daisy of his fantasy, though it’s a perfect copy - smiles.

“I’m pretty sure I’m real, but thanks.”

The sense of humor is spot-on. Coulson wants to cry at how much he’s missed hearing her jokes.

“But I looked for you… And I couldn’t find you… you didn’t want to…”

She holds him tighter. It hurts, but Coulson doesn’t care. It hurts and it feels good. She feels real. Her strong arms around him.

She has him on a tight embrace. He’s sitting between her legs and the floor is shaking a bit. Where are they? Daisy has one hand under Coulson’s jacket, over the place where it hurts the most.

“What happened?”

“Short story. Bad guys, very bad guys. They shot you, and hit you in the head. Not in that order.”

He doesn’t remember. He only remembers hitting the ground. But he is not longer there, on the cold cement.

“How am I…?”

“I was tracking the same very bad guys,” she explains. Then in a whisper. “ _Thank God_.”

Coulson feels her press her lips against his temple. It reminds him of something. The desert, her hands wrapped around his, her mouth touching his knuckle. San Juan, her hair brushing against his face as she bent over him. A repeat.

She hugs him tight again, then lets go slightly.

He remembers. He was tracking her, not the bad guys. He was searching for her.

“We managed to stop the bleeding, more or less. I gave you a couple of sutures on the eyebrow. You’re going to get a pretty badass scar after this.”

She chuckles nervously, like she is trying to reassure herself and Coulson is not so bad. He can feel the deep cut over his right eye. It stings a lot but at least he can more or less lift his eyelid, so he guesses it’ll be okay. A scar, as she says. Coulson doesn’t mind them much anymore. Not the ones who have to do with Daisy, anyway.

“We?”

Daisy throws a glance towards her side. Coulson tries to follow it, get an idea of where he is, but he can’t turn his neck.

“I called in Mack,” Daisy explains instead. “He took a Quinjet. We’re taking you back to the base.”

That explains the buzzing sound in his ears, the cold, the shaky floor. They’re flying.

They’re _going back_.

He makes the effort and manages to look up so he can meet her eyes. He can’t remember the last time he’s seen them this close. It hurts that he can’t remember.

“But Daisy-”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, they’ll lock you up,” he says. Then, because it’s only fair. “ _We_ ’ll lock you up.”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t leave you,” she says. She closes her eyes for a moment and touches her forehead against his temple, her nose brushing his cheek. When she pulls back there’s blood on her face and her eyes shiny.

“Daisy…”

He can only say her name, like someone is going to take it away from him any moment.

“You got hurt because you were looking for me.”

He nods.

“I couldn’t leave you,” Daisy repeats. “Don’t you understand? I could never…”

He nods again. He understands. He moves his body so that he can wrap one arm around her as well, slipping down the floor of the Quinjet until his head is resting on her stomach. She still holds the gauze against his wound but she draws her other hand across the back of his neck, finger threading through his short hair.

They stay like that a few minutes. Coulson can feel her heartbeat close, louder than the buzzing of the engines.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he says, lifting his head to look at her. A bit of a grandiose statement for someone half-dead who couldn’t stand on his own two feet right now.

Daisy shakes her head and bends over him and presses his lips briefly against his mouth.

“No,” she says. “Me neither. _I promise_.”

He sighs. Maybe this is all a fantasy. Maybe he is still on the floor of a cold warehouse outside Washington, bleeding out.

 

+

 

Opening his eyes hurts a little bit less hours later.

It wasn’t a fantasy and he is alive.

Daisy has kept her promise, in a very dramatic Daisy-way.

He is in a med room now, in bed. Her hair is the first thing he sees, sprayed all over his shoulder. She is no longer wearing her field uniform and she smells clean. She has her eyes closed but Coulson can tell she is not asleep. She is no longer holding him tight as if she was afraid he might slip through her fingers (ironic, considering she was the one who slipped through hers). But she is still holding him. She is under the bedsheets as well and Coulson realizes how warm she makes everything around him. He would have liked to see when she climbed into bed while he was unconscious. Did anyone else see? He can imagine a team of SHIELD agents looking on in confusion. Mack, May and the others, Coulson doesn’t think they’d be surprised at all.

But however it happened she is still here, her arms draped around his chest, her whole body pressed against Coulson’s side. Like she has been holding him all the way from the Quinjet.

“Feeling better?” she asks, not bothering to open her eyes, knowing he’s awake.

“Not much,” he says and the curve of her smile brushes his neck. He realizes he is wearing thin hospital-like clothes and can pretty much feel everywhere Daisy is touching him.

“I can get you some painkillers if you want,” she offers and Coulson’s stomach drops in disappointment. He doesn’t want her to stop holding him. “But I’m very comfortable right now.”

It sounds like a joke but it also sounds like a request.

It amazes him, after so many months without hearing her voice, he hasn’t forgotten, what every inflection of her voice really means, the things she hides behind a humorous tone. Coulson feels grateful for knowing her so well, even the things he wishes he didn’t know, he feels grateful for those two.

“I’d rather if you stayed,” he tells her.

She is so close, he can feel when the air goes out of her body in a silent sigh.

“Okay, if that’s what you want.”

She draws her hand over his heart and Coulson notices something on her wrist.

“What is this?” he asks.

Daisy lifts her arm so he can see the shiny object properly.

“Electronic bracelet. So I can’t mess with anything in the base,” she says and Coulson feels a pang of old, half-forgotten guilt. “And so that the new Director can know where I am at any time. It sends an alarm to the strike team if I use my powers.”

“Daisy,” he says, trying to sit up a bit.

She stops him, it only takes a hand on his chest and Coulson realizes how heavy his limbs feel, how much in pain he is in if he tries to move. He lets Daisy’s touch settle him down.

“It was the only way they’d let me stay with you,” she explains, tucking her head under his chin. Coulson notices her leg wrapping around his thigh, like a snake softly coiling. Back in the Quinjet he was numb, busy dying, to notice her touch. Now he realizes how long it’s been since he’s felt something so intimate. He’s glad it’s Daisy. It even makes sense, even though he tried to fight it for a long time.

But Daisy letting herself be tagged and trapped for him… that’s not right, he doesn’t want that.

“Daisy.”

“We’ll figure it out, okay?”

He thinks he’s said those words before. Daisy is more likely to keep her promises than he is.

He’s offered a lot of empty words over the years, she must be tired. He’d like to give her some more solid. He tries to wrap his arm around her back, hold her back, but he can’t.

“I’m sorry I can’t hold you right now…” he says.

Just more words.

But Daisy smiles. It’s that quiet smile that makes Coulson feel like she is twenty years older than him and not the other way around. He’s seen it before. She smiles and then her eyelids look heavy and she closes her eyes.

“It’s fine,” she says, rearranging her weight so that her head is resting over his chest. Coulson can smell her hair. Did she always smell so well? He takes a noticeable breath and Daisy chuckles. “There will be time for cuddling when you’re better.”

“You promise?” Coulson asks.

Daisy lifts her head and kisses his lips again, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, as if they had been in love for years.

“Yeah,” she says, sounding sleepy, comfortable, _content_. “I promise.”


End file.
